


coda to combinatorics

by More_night



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, pre-slash ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 04:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19165489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/More_night/pseuds/More_night
Summary: Shcherbina asks Khomyuk what's going on between her and Legasov.





	coda to combinatorics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [potted_music](https://archiveofourown.org/users/potted_music/gifts).
  * Inspired by [combinatorics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19161901) by [potted_music](https://archiveofourown.org/users/potted_music/pseuds/potted_music). 



 

* * *

 

 

"What's up with you and Legasov?"

Ulana's pencil pauses above her pad. The question from Shcherbina comes as a surprise--they have barely talked, ever, and usually only through Valery's mediation. The tone also catches her ear. Possessive and demanding. God he does like to order people around doesn't he?

She turns around. Boris Shcherbina seems dreadful, serious, like he's on a mission. It's his usual look, but she just didn't think of it as compatible with his question.

She had sized him in a minute. Stern, conservative, old-fashioned, possibly infinitely tender underneath the outer shell, but good luck getting there.

That's why she says it bluntly, to get as clear (and possibly as funny) a reaction as she can. "We got drunk three times. The first time we cried. The second one we fucked. The third one we laughed." She doesn't emphasize 'fucked', she says just like she would have said 'talked' or 'it rained', saying 'see, boris, girls can use that word too'. "Other than that, we are trying to understand how a reactor that cannot explode exploded."

Shcherbina's reaction is not quite the one she expected. "Mh," he says with this gravelly voice of his. He's not surprised. Okay.

(She thinks how that voice must sound during sex: either more gravelly, or oddly high-pitched. Her bet's on the latter.)

He pulls up a chair beside her at the lobby's bar. Oh god. What's this going to be, then? You did my buddy--why not do me? No, he doesn't look that creepy. A lecture on the fun they should or should not be having? No, he's drinking his soul out too.

He pours them glasses of vodka. Not big ones either--keeping it polite. A gentleman.

"Funny," he says. "File said he was an invert."

Ulana officially freezes. Ah. So this is where this was going.

"Then the file must have been wrong."

Shcherbina drinks his glass in one swallow. "The KGB is certainly many things. But one thing it usually isn't is completely wrong."

This feeling--walking on eggshells to protect a friend, walking on eggshells to protect herself, watching every word, weighing every breath of air.

"Apparently, the file must have been only partially true," she tries, quietly. When Shcherbina seems to accept the answer, she downs her glass too. "Shall we leave it at that?"

Shcherbina pours them another round, downs his and gets up. "We shall." He turns and heads to the stairs.

Ulana tries to think of something--anything--that could change this kind of man's mind on that particular topic. Don't think of him less for it. Don't worry about it. He's just like everybody, it doesn't change a thing. He's a good man, that's all that matters. Or--God forbid--by the way, he likes you.

But all those things can make things just as much worse as they can make them better, so she says nothing.

"Khomyuk," Shcherbina calls her from the foot of the stairs. He is a bit different now, less severe, but--she can barely place it--it lasts for a split second, and then it's out and gone. "Don't break his heart."

"Of... of course not. It's... It's not like that. We're friends."

Shcherbina nods authoritatively. "Good." The threat is barely veiled.

When he's gone, Ulana asks her glass, "What kind of a conversation was that?"

And indeed. Now she can't shake the impression that Valery is not the only man in trouble here.

 

 

* * *

 

 


End file.
